Islamic militancy showing new signs of life in Bangladesh: CSM

Dhaka, July 30 (ANI): Islamic militancy is showing new signs of life in Bangladesh despite crackdowns.

According to a Christian Science Monitor (CSM) report, terrorist groups are showing a persistence and resilience that has left local authorities worried.

However, the CSM says that militancy in Bangladesh is not on the scale or tone that exists in Pakistan or Afghanistan, but has shown a frightening persistence in recent years.

It says that in 2006, police and paramilitary forces systematically targeted and took down the top terrorist organization, Jamat'ul Mujahideen Bangladesh, or JMB. Seven of JMB's leaders were hung in 2007.

One estimate suggested there were about 12,000 cadres actively operating in the country, mostly madrassa (Islamic seminary) teachers, students and clerics of mosques....

In April of this year, Bangladesh intelligence agencies declared that the Islamist terrorist groups are reorganizing with the aim of making a deadly comeback.

Bangladesh's teeming cities and rugged countryside have proven an unlikely safe haven for some of the jihadi world's most hardened operatives.

Recently, Bangladeshi police in Dhaka arrested an Afghan war veteran with ties to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the banned Pakistani terrorist organization held responsible for the Mumbai attacks last November, The Daily Star, an English-language newspaper in Bangladesh, reports.

The Christian Science Monitor reported in June that Bangladesh was becoming a hideout for South Asia's terrorists: Bangladeshi police in June uncovered a plot that used Bangladesh to funnel thousands of weapons to an Indian separatist group.

The police also arrested an operative working for notorious South Asian terrorist Daud Ibrahim, who is alleged to have ties to Al Qaeeda.

The operative disclosed that 150 of Mr. Ibrahim's operatives are stationed in Bangladesh. (ANI)